Adults' Media Use and Attitudes 2026 (release: Passive social media use, AI companionship, and online side hustles: UK adults' media and online lives revealed)

Key Findings

• — 54% of UK adults use AI tools such as ChatGPT, Copilot or Gemini, driven by 79% of 16 to 24-year-olds and 74% of 25 to 34-year-olds.
• — About one in eight AI users (12%) use these tools for conversational purposes, rising to about one in five (19%) among 25 to 34-year-olds; qualitative participants described using AI for relationship break-up advice or for company when working from home, sometimes treating it as a person without noticing.
• — The proportion of online adults who feel the benefits of being online outweigh the risks fell to 59% from 72% a year earlier; social media users who say platforms are good for their mental health fell to 36% from 42%.
• — 67% of adults say they sometimes spend too long on their devices and 40% say this happens most days; 49% of social media users actively post, share or comment, down from 61% in 2024.
• — 82% of online adults said they would respond safely to a scam email, down from 88% in 2022; 16 to 24-year-olds were best at spotting a fake social media profile (88%).

Methodology Notes

Adults' Media Use and Attitudes Tracker: quantitative survey of 7,533 UK adults aged 16+, fieldwork 29 September to 28 November 2025, mixed online panels and face-to-face interviews; Ofcom notes trends are indicative because of methodology changes. Adults' Media Lives: qualitative longitudinal study of about 20 participants since 2005 with 90-minute in-home interviews. Release dated 3 April 2026. Verified from a Wayback raw capture of the Ofcom release page (HTTP 200) and the WiredGov official-release mirror (HTTP 200); the report PDF and data tables on ofcom.org.uk were not fetchable (403) and the archived report landing page is the 2025 edition, so figures are those stated in the release.

Sources